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February 2019Volume 45 Number 1 a publication of the Minnesota Astronomical Society

In the pages of the Gemini

Developing a Planetarium Program 40 Years Ago

By Nelson CapesIn 2019 we amateur astronomers have an incredible variety of planetarium

programs available at low cost that can run on a variety of computers, from mobile devices such as the iPhoneTM and AndroidTM to laptops and desktops, both Windows® and Macintosh® systems. For example, I routinely use the Sky Safari PlusTM software on my iPhoneTM and the StellariumTM software on my Macbook AirTM. With the touch of a finger on the iPhoneTM screen, or using the trackpad or mouse on a desktop or laptop system, you and I can do everything from seeing the sky at any time and location on the planet to searching for a particular deep-sky object. The huge processing power of modern systems makes such inquiries very easy and satisfying.

This was not always the case, as many MAS members may remember. When I first got into amateur astronomy as an elementary school student in the 1950s, I had to have a pretty good knowledge of the night sky before I could even begin to look for an object. At the time, I used a home-built 4'' reflector on an equatorial mount that I cobbled together from parts from Edmund Scientific. To locate a particular star, such as Alberio (Beta Cygni), for example, required the following tedious procedure:

• It was first necessary to roughly align the polar axis of the equatorial mount with the celestial north pole, using Polaris.

• From a book of star tables, I would look up the right ascension and declination of Albireo.

• Then it was necessary to calculate the local mean time and from that the local sidereal time.

• At that point, I could rotate the scope on the polar axis to the hour angle of Albireo and on the declination axis to its declination.

• If I had done a good polar alignment, and the setting circles had been properly set and were large enough, I might find Albireo in the finder scope.

Of course, it was much simpler to just identify Albireo by looking at the sky! That required star charts or something like a planisphere. Finding a deep-sky object, except the very brightest (such as M42), was impossible in the light-pollution of the day (and how we wish we still had that level of light pollution).

Like many other

Venus in the DaytimeBy Dan Burbank…Page 3

My Pathway to the Stars By Dr. Mike Shaw…Page 5

Big Game By Dave Tosteson…Page 7

MAS Patron Members…Page 10

MAS 2019 Star Party Schedule…Page 11

A page of computer code for Applanetarium.

Minnesota Astronomical Society

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2GEMINI • www.mnastro.org

amateurs, I did not have money for any better system. In fact, no one except observatories would have been able to afford anything much better.

Things changed dramatically in the late 1970s with the release of the Apple II personal computer. I bought my Apple II in 1978 and began developing applications for sale, mostly small utility programs. There was no established market for such programs, so many developers sold their programs through Programma International, Inc. of Los Angeles. The developer was only responsible for writing the program. The marketing and sale were handled by Programma for a part of the sales price of each unit.

In 1979, having regained my childhood interest in amateur astronomy, I realized that the availability of systems

like the Apple II at a very reasonable cost meant that, in theory, it would be possible to write an application program that would display the night sky at a particular date/time and location. Having been a software developer for several years on IBM mainframe systems and having written some fairly complex software, I felt capable of writing such a program.

The key to developing any planetarium program is a mathematical formula that specifies whether, at a given sidereal time and latitude, a given star will be above the observer’s horizon. If the result of this calculation is “yes,” then it is possible to translate the star’s right ascension and declination into x-y coordinates on the computer screen and to display the star on the screen. It would not be necessary to go through the tedious calculations described earlier or use star charts or a planisphere. In theory, the star layouts on the screen

would closely correspond to the actual night sky for that time and location.

Fortunately, I was able to contact K.M. Merrill at the Department of Astronomy at the University of Minnesota, and he provided me with the raw formula that was needed. (See the letter dated August 22, 1979, from Mr. Merrill to me.) It was then necessary to translate the raw mathematical formula into code for the Apple II.

Anyone who has done any computer programming knows that computers don’t read mathematical formulas directly. Instead, it is necessary to use a high-level programming language to translate the mathematics into statements that the computer can understand. Such languages are Fortran, Cobol, C, Pascal and others. I was an expert in IBM’s Basic Assembly Language (BAL), which is a very low-level programming language meant for the implementation of large programs on IBM mainframe systems. Being well versed in a low-level language, it was relatively easy for me to become familiar with BASIC, the high-level language in which Apple II programs were written. Furthermore, the designers of the Apple II, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, had the insight to implement BASIC in such a way that common functions (such as sine, cosine, and tangent) required in the mathematics were built into the system.

The letter from K.M. Merrill.

The letter from K.M. Merrill, page 2.

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Over a period of several months in 1979, I developed my “Applanetarium” program for the Apple II computer. The program operated as follows:

• First, the program asked the user for his/her longitude and latitude, the date (month, day), and the standard time (hour, minute).

• Then the program asked the user whether he or she wanted to display stars over the northern horizon or over the southern horizon.

• The program then input a table of stars from a floppy disk drive and calculated, for each star in the table, whether it was visible under these parameters. If so, the program translated the star’s right ascension and declination into x and y coordinates, respectively, on the rectangular monitor screen.

• The bottom of the screen represented the current horizon (north or south) and the top of the screen represented the zenith. A star’s declination was translated into a “y” offset above the bottom of the screen. A star whose declination resulted in it being below the horizon at the current date and time would not be shown.

• The middle of the screen consisted of stars whose calculated hour angle put them near the meridian, with stars having a calculated hour angle west of the meridian being displayed to the right of center (positive “x” offset) and stars with a calculated hour angle east of the meridian being displayed left of center (negative “x” offset).

• Because the sky is a sphere and the screen is a plane, the program displayed only six hours of right ascension in the southern sky in order to attempt to maintain a correct scale. Every thirty minutes, the program updated the display to take into account the rotation of the earth.

In addition to drawing the sky, the program implemented two

other features. First, the user could input a star’s name. If the star was visible, its location on the screen would blink. Second, the user could use the keyboard arrow keys to move a cursor over a star on the screen and ask the program to identify the star. It was thus very useful for educators as well as hobbyists.

Applanetarium was quite successful, and I received positive comments from individual users and institutions all over the world. It was amazing that such a program could be developed on a small computer system (48K of memory) and would be available to the average person who knew nothing about computer programming.

Today, programs such as StellariumTM and Sky Safari PlusTM dwarf my 1979 implementation, a sign of how far technology has come in the intervening 40 years. I now have, on my iPhoneTM, Sky Safari PlusTM, which, according to the seller1, has 100 million stars, 3+ million galaxies, and over 770,000+ solar system objects, including every comet and asteroid ever discovered. Back in 1979, Applanetarium’s database consisted of only the 110 brightest stars and no galaxies, solar system objects, comets or asteroids.

Not only that, but I can and do use Sky Safari PlusTM to control my Celestron 5SETM GoTo scope via Wi-Fi. Once the scope has been aligned (using Celestron’s StarSenseTM technology), I can search the database for a particular object and tell the scope to slew to that object.

I haven’t used setting circles in years.Nelson Capes is a member of Minnesota Astronomical

Society. He owns a Celestron 5SE computerized Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope (alt/azimuth mount) with an Orion 9x50 RACI finder scope, Celestron StarSenseTM Align technology, Celestron SkySyncTM GPS, and Celestron Sky PortalTM Wi-Fi control module.

Skysafariastronomy.com

Venus in the Daytime

by Dan BurbankA fun little observing project is to find and take pictures of

Venus in the daytime. In February and March of 2017, Venus was approaching

its minimum distance to the Earth on its orbit, the inferior conjunction. I had read somewhere that Venus is pretty easy to find during the day if one knows where to look, but up to that time I had never tried.

Note on safety! Since Venus appears fairly close to the Sun when it nears conjunction, I was concerned about making these observations safely. Inadvertently pointing a telescope not equipped with a solar filter at the Sun would, at the very least, damage the telescope. Even a brief glance at the Sun through the finder or telescope could cause serious eye damage. I addressed this issue by placing my telescope in the shadow of a building (my garage), but at a location where Venus would be visible. This ensured that I could do the Venus observations safely. It’s clearly not worth taking any chances.

I have a homemade 12.5'' f/6 reflector telescope with an alt-azimuth mount. It is equipped with a 1x Rigel Systems Quikfinder (a reflex sight similar in principle to a Telrad) and a 4x telescopic rifle sight but with no built-in means of measuring the altitude and azimuth at which the telescope is pointing. To find Venus, I

looked up the approximate right ascension and declination listed in Sky & Telescope on the “Planetary Almanac” page for Venus and for the Sun. The Sun’s right ascension crosses the zenith when the Sun reaches its daily high point in the sky, close to noon. The time is only approximate because we’re not in the exact middle of the Central Time Zone, and the earth’s orbit is not perfectly circular.

Graph of S&T Venus’s apparent diameter and distance, and diameters from the photos.

4GEMINI • www.mnastro.org

To make things simple, I did the Venus observations at about the time Venus reached its highest point in the sky. The altitude of Venus can then be computed fairly easily by adding the Venus declination to the latitude of my observing site (about 45º). I used a cheap inclinometer to adjust the telescope tube to that altitude angle. Then I could find Venus by sweeping the telescope a little east or west of due south until Venus came into view in the finder. As an example of how to determine the time when Venus reaches its highest point in the sky, we can use the data for Feb 1, 2017, where the Sun’s RA=20h 58m and that of Venus is 23h 48m. Since RA increases from west to east and the RA difference is 2h 50m, I could determine that Venus would reach its highest point in the sky a little before 3:00 p.m. As the change in altitude angle for any object is pretty slow before and after it nears its highest point, I could easily find Venus an hour before or after it reaches its high point in the sky. Once found using the telescope finder, it’s easy to see Venus naked-eye as a bright dot against a blue sky.

Home-built 12.5'' Dob used in this project.

Inclinometer used to set altitude.

To get pictures of Venus, I used a Canon SL1 fitted with a 2'' eyepiece adapter to slip into my 2x Barlow lens. The Barlow lens/camera was inserted into a 2'' diameter eyepiece focuser. The planet was bright enough to get a rough focus by looking through the camera viewfinder, but to optimize focus I had to take a number of images, tweaking focus for best sharpness. To minimize vibration, I used a cable with a remote exposure trigger and set the camera in a mode where the first press on the exposure button flipped the mirror up and the second press initiated the exposure. Exposure times were 1/1000 or 1/4000 second.

I was curious how Venus’s apparent diameter in arcseconds estimated from these pictures compared with the S&T published values. To get that I needed to compute the image scale (the sky angle subtended by each pixel) and then estimate the diameter of the planet in pixels from the best image I got on each date.

Here is the way I calculated image scale: The telescope’s f/6 primary mirror with the 2x Barlow acts as a 3800mm f/12 telephoto. The Canon SL1 has an APS-C image sensor that measures 22.3mm horizontally by 14.9mm vertically, with corresponding 5184x3456 pixels. Each pixel occupies about 0.0043mm square. The pixel scale is 0.0043mm/3800mm=1.132 microradians or about 0.233 arc seconds per pixel.

To estimate the diameter of Venus in arc seconds from photos 3 through 8, I used my photo editor (GIMP in Linux) to display a circle just big enough to contain Venus’s crescent outline. Then I recorded the circle’s diameter in pixels.

To do the comparison, I plotted my measured diameters by date on a graph (see Figure 1) of the S&T Venus’s diameters and the planet’s distance from the Earth, by date. Individual data points were connected by cubic spline interpolation. My measurements from the pictures were around 10 arcseconds bigger than the S&T values. I attribute much of that measurement

Venus on 2/3/17 Venus on 2/9/17 Venus on 2/17/17

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Venus on 2/25/17 Venus on 3/3/17 Venus on 3/21/17

error to daytime atmospheric turbulence (maybe from air over the garage roof). Photo 8 (exposed at 1/4000 second) shows that turbulence very strongly. I would be interested in MAS members’ suggestions, observations and opinions on improving

these images or the methods used in this project.

My Pathway to the Stars

By Dr. Mike ShawStars have colors! And then I started laughing. That was

my reaction to seeing the blurry image on my camera’s LCD screen, Figure 1. It was my first real photograph of the night sky. Fortunately, I was by myself on a backpacking trip in the Los Padres National Forest in California, and no one was there to hear and worry about my sanity. I couldn’t believe I’d captured an image so similar to those I’d seen published for years.

Figure 1: November 2009 Blurry, but look at those star colors! I was hooked. Cassiopeia is at the upper right, facing roughly north-northwest. The head of Lacerta is at upper left.

It was November 2009. I’d just acquired a fast 35mm lens and mounted it on my Canon Rebel XTi. I had confidently set the manual focus to the infinity mark on the lens, since the camera lacks a live-view capability. I adjusted the camera settings to what I believed were correct values, aimed it in the direction of the sky, and pressed the shutter release button. What popped up on the LCD screen changed my life.

All throughout my scientific and academic career, I’ve done research with laboratory instruments to explore and measure natural phenomena, particularly with optics and imaging systems. You can imagine my delight that night when I realized the power of my camera to explore the universe and see otherwise invisible night-sky objects. Later that same night, I captured the main part of Orion. I couldn’t be more excited! I could even make out the

fuzzy colors of the Orion Nebula. It felt unreal.Space interests run in my family. My curiosity in astronomy

was sparked as a kid growing up in Ohio, glued to our small, black-and-white TV and watching the Apollo missions. I fondly remember warm summer nights, lying on the hood of our family’s station wagon in our driveway with my older sister, listening to crickets and trying to name the constellations. As a teenager, I built and launched a variety of standard and custom model rockets and hot-air balloons under the dubious supervision of my older brother. My mom and dad were both scientists, keenly interested in the natural world. Each summer, my dad would spend a week at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California, working on experiments that ultimately flew in the Space Shuttle. We were also a family of photographers, although back in the era of slides and film we were a little thriftier with our photos.

My astronomy fever was kick-started in the 1980s during camping trips with friends in Anza Borrego Desert State Park in California. It was here I first viewed Venus and Saturn; like everyone else, I was blown away by the experience. It goes to show how important it can be to lend a hand, or an eyepiece, to beginners; more often than not, people just don’t know what they’re missing.

Returning from one of these trips later on in the early 2000s, we stopped at a bookstore and picked up a copy of the Sky and Telescope special issue on astrophotography. I was amazed to learn that my digital camera might allow me to photograph what I’d just been seeing. I immediately set about trying to do so; these efforts led to the nights in the Los Padres.

This was about the same time that I left my ten-year stint as a corporate applied physicist (yes, I was a rocket scientist) to fulfill a lifelong ambition to teach physics and astronomy at the university level. The next fifteen years were spent in academia, where among other joys I inherited four dusty Dobs and three well-used but functional 5'' Newtonians. I promptly purchased an 8'' Celestron SCT on a Go-To mount, along with a Vixen 4'' refractor on an equatorial mount. I loved our “Astronomical Adventures” student star parties, which both science and non-science students would attend. To this day, one of my favorite quotes happened on a particularly cloudy night as we were gathered around in a giant circle for our introductory presentation, “But Dr. Shaw, what are you going to do about the clouds?”

6GEMINI • www.mnastro.org

One of my proudest accomplishments during this time was working with the U.S. National Park Rangers at the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area (SMMNRA) adjoining Los Angeles. Our goal was to create a now twice-annual “Star Festival.” These events now routinely attract hundreds of participants from across Southern California, along with guest speakers and dozens of telescopes from surrounding astronomy clubs. The next time you pass through any of the domestic terminals at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), keep an eye out for a huge poster of the Milky Way over the SMMNRA’s signature Mt. Boney—one of my images from this collaboration.

Several months after that first color photo of the sky, I took a deep breath, took the plunge and invested in my first good DSLR, tripod and set of top-quality lenses. I took them on a weeklong backpacking excursion during the peak of the Perseid meteor shower along the northern edge of Thousand Island Lake in the Ansel Adams Wilderness in California’s High Sierra. It was August. All night long, I could hear whoops and hollers across the lake every time a meteor streaked across the sky. They were from other backpackers who I didn’t realize were there. It was pretty cool.

As I was editing my images, I saw a faint glimpse of a patchy something in the southern sky. Allowing myself some latitude in Lightroom, I adjusted the Develop settings—and out popped the Milky Way. That image was my first one of the Milky Way, my first to win an award, and the first to be sold to a private individual as a gift for her brother.

Figure 2: My first Milky Way image. A bit of a fluke; I was trying to capture Perseid meteors. It is way over-processed, but ya gotta start somewhere, right?

After several years of ever-deepening interests in nightscape photography, and with the support of my family, I took an even deeper breath and left academia to launch a full-time business specializing in nightscapes, time-lapse photography and filmmaking. Since then, I’ve shot hundreds of thousands of images of the night sky while traveling around the globe, have written two books on night photography and time-lapses, and given countless presentations, classes and workshops. I’m now a fulltime photographer, author, speaker and workshop leader—and lovin’ it!

Whether it’s the view of the southern hemisphere night sky seen from Australia, the dancing Aurora Borealis from high-latitude Iceland, Figure 3, or a moonless night in the American

Southwest, there is always something to see once the blue light of the atmosphere is switched off by the setting Sun. When I’m asked where is my favorite place to shoot, I struggle; each place has its pros and cons. Most of my experience in the U.S. has been in California, Utah, New Mexico and Minnesota; I know these areas very well. The night skies have taken me to Iceland several times, as well as to Australia, Nepal and many European countries. I especially enjoy the wonderful clarity of high-altitude skies (higher than 9,000 feet); if pressed I would have to choose the alpine mountains of California as my go-to destination.

Figure 3: The Aurora Borealis over Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon in Iceland. We had waited nearly three weeks for the right conditions; finally, it all came together.

Almost all of my astrophotography images and time-lapses are made with wide-field equipment. I use lenses ranging from 8mm fisheye lenses that capture the entire sky, Figure 4, to 500mm f/5.6 telephotos (3.5'' refractors) that zoom in on the surface of the Moon and deep-sky objects. My compositions almost always include an interesting foreground subject. The night sky is invisible during the day, but our surroundings, especially in truly dark locations, are generally invisible at night. I like to think that my art bridges both worlds—night and day.

Figure 4: A Geminid fireball explodes over Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park in California. This fisheye lens captures the entire sky.

My favorite night-sky subjects for both still images and time-lapses are constellation and asterisms, meteor showers, the Aurora Borealis, (haven’t seen the Aurora Australis, yet), the central band and galactic core of the Milky Way, any phase of

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moonrise or moonset, prominent deep-sky nebulae, clusters and nearby galaxies.

The images I create are either single exposures or images comprised of multiple shots, Figure 5. But in all cases, everything is done from the same tripod location with the same camera and lens during the same shooting session. I am not a fan of graphic art made up of totally unrelated images, such as a deep-sky image of M42 juxtaposed with a north-facing view of Temple of the Sun in Canyonlands National Park. I feel that such images at best are misleading and at a minimum must be clearly identified. I am, however, an advocate of creating composite images that more closely represent the dynamic range of human vision that can be achieved, for example, using the state-of-the art cameras of today. But this is a subject for a later article.

Figure 5: The summer view from one of my all-time favorite spots in California’s High Sierra. This ultra-high-resolution panorama was made up of four rows of nine images per row, for a total of 36 images; it can be printed at full resolution to a size of over ten feet in height.

As a Gemini reader, you may or may not be surprised when I say how shocked I continue to be when students in my nightscape workshops share the fact that they’ve never seen the central band of the Milky Way before—and these are folks in their 40s and 50s. It is always a joy to take a workshop group to a dark-sky location during the new Moon and allow them to discover the sheer beauty and excitement of the night sky.

In these situations, and if we have the right conditions, like

an empty, open parking lot with a clear view of the horizon, I will often have us all lie down with our heads in a circle and simply gaze upwards for a few minutes. Under a clear, truly dark, moonless sky, without the distraction of the natural landscape, it is easy to suddenly find yourself floating in the cosmos. The stars, nebulae, star clusters and dust clouds take on a magical, three-dimensional appearance that is impossible to describe and simply must be experienced.

Where to next? In April, I’m holding a night-photography workshop in the Twin Cities and another one in the Eastern Sierra town of Bishop, California, in June with my friend and colleague Babak Tafreshi, National Geographic photographer and Founder/Director of The World at Night project (twanight.org). And you won’t want to miss our annual Aurora Summit in Two Harbors, Minnesota, this October, Figure 6. Last year we had just over 100 participants and were featured in the December 6, 2018, Star Tribune Magazine.

Figure 6: Participants at our 2018 Aurora Summit conference, held annually in Two Harbors, Minnesota. Our next one is scheduled for the weekend of October 25-27; registration will open in June. Save the date!

Ever since that first blurry but colorful image of the stars, I’ve been hooked. Where are you off to next?

Big Game

By Dave TostesonAs a sports fan I feel fortunate to live in an area that has

hosted many recent championship events. In the Twin Cities region of Minnesota, the last Super Bowl, North American Ryder Cup and NCAA Frozen and Final Fours for hockey and volleyball have been held locally. The culmination of March Madness will be at U.S. Bank Stadium, the home of the Vikings. Numerous WBNA tournaments have been played here, with our Lynx winning several titles. A recent MLB All-Star game graced the Twins’ new outdoor stadium, and other organizations such as Major League Soccer and the PGA are building venues and growing fan bases.

This is the first recognized micro-quasar.

8GEMINI • www.mnastro.org

So why do we care about such things? In the long run they are certainly not as important as our schools, or the quality of medical care made available to everyone, or the stability and progress of our political and judicial institutions. I refuse to think they are mere entertainment, or that the transitory nature of bragging rights or pride is hardly a lofty ideal worthy of the time and investment they are given. One reason we pay attention is to see the most physically gifted among us achieve in the defined nature of a structured and refereed competition, with Olympic sport the pinnacle. The Greeks were pretty smart. But I think the core of this attraction may be to see what is possible at the limits of human ability and, by extension, the ennoblement and inspiration to dream of what we may personally and collectively attain.

The first identified gravitationally lensed object. aThe lensing galaxy is visible between the quasar images.

This urge to explore and test our limits extends to every sphere of human involvement. When my wife and I recently visited Cuba, I found Ernest Hemingway still looming large in the local psyche. In certain ways he was the embodiment of a (mostly male) ideal for finding, testing and overcoming challenges involved in a desire to hunt and kill the largest and most dangerous animals. A number of my friends have gone on safari to Africa, a trip I hope to take. Legal shooting is now done only with cameras, with funds used to ensure that these endangered species survive so future generations will have an opportunity to experience their majesty. In these pursuits we are fortunate to have access to safe and rapid modes of transport and an abundance of information. I keep a map of the world with markers where our family members have been, reminders of cultural, historical and geographic exploration. I contrast that to the stories about my nineteenth-century ancestors and the months of hardship they endured to relocate to a new country, only to start over at the bottom of society. When I visited my Scandinavian relatives, I was taken to the very home from which our mutual ancestors emigrated, with fading photographs on the wall—poignant reminders of that time.

Just as it has taken progress in energy, manufacturing, imaging and communication to uncover a more complete picture of human history and culture, the same can be said of those who look outward, away from our planet. Our understanding of the physical structures and characteristics of our universe and how it has changed and evolved over its 13.7-billion-year lifetime has rapidly advanced over the last century. Guillermo Gonzalez of Iowa State and Jay Richards of Seattle’s Discovery Institute have written about important factors that contribute to our ability to study the cosmos in their book, The Privileged Planet. The clarity

of our atmosphere and our position between the arms of the Milky Way in a local “bubble” devoid of thick dust and nebulae allow us relatively unobstructed views of our own galaxy, the Local Group, and the universe at large. They remark on the time in which we exist as another important factor in understanding our history. Like Goldilocks, being too early or too late in the course of the universe would not have sufficed, nor would having too thick or too thin a window.

As Alice delved deeper into Wonderland and each experience seemed stranger than the last, she declared it all “curiouser and curiouser,” connoting a mild disorientation and lack of understanding. Scientists have learned that such unexpected findings can be used as a springboard to discovery. With effort, persistence and ingenuity, what is today’s conundrum may be tomorrow’s essential clue. In observing the visual universe, what we see through the eyepiece of our telescopes is informed by the accumulation of thousands of such stories—pieces of the largest puzzle. Like celestial archeologists, astronomers remove layers of uncertainty and ignorance with each new study. Their finds may seem isolated, but something as seemingly mundane as “this supernova seems too faint” can lead to a profound rethinking of our cosmos.

I endeavor to follow in the footsteps of astronomers who seek “big game,” and I enjoy threads of research involved in their discovery, where unexpected or unusual concepts connect things previously thought disparate. The powerful Ice Cube Observatory neutrino, traced back to a blazar in Orion, is one example, as is the gravitationally lensed quasar Q0957+561 in Ursa Major that confirmed Einstein’s 1936 prediction from general relativity. When I search the literature, most papers relate to things we cannot observe, such as those in non-visible portions of the EM spectrum, theoretical offerings or ones simply too faint and out of range. The 2014 MU69, also called Ultima Thule and recently visited by New Horizons, falls into the last category. At 27th magnitude it was far beyond my abilities. But then something appears that is new, conceptually engaging and within my threshold.

Arp 273, an interacting galaxy pair.

My hunt starts with gathering as much information about an object as I can find. It is frequently contained in a single discovery paper. But if time has passed since that detection, then multiple instruments may have studied it, and the literature could be rife with debate and new data. The most exciting time is often after multiple areas of inquiry have been brought to bear on a new find that defied initial explanation. The story of the first micro-quasar, SS433 in Aquila, was such a case, and fast radio pulses are a confounding current example. Another path of approach is to take things previously observed and connect them

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with current ideas and thinking. When deep imaging around the turn of the millennium found outer halos in planetary nebulae, I revisited some of my observations. I found several where I had seen at least portions of their haloes but had not appreciated their significance at the time. Long-exposure imaging of galactic tidal structures uncovered previously unseen shells and tails which represented new opportunities at the eyepiece to observe and understand things in light of current research.

The career arc of wild-game hunters may in one way parallel deep-sky enthusiasts. Both often start with easy prey or “target practice” to hone their skills. I have a friend who took an outstate trip to reduce the prairie dog population overrunning a Montana ranch because they seemed to have no natural local predators. Amateur astronomers often start with the brighter and more easily found objects in the Messier and Caldwell lists. The difference is, in the case of stargazers, that these are some of the most beautiful and detailed things we can ever see, and one could spend a lifetime examining them with different instruments. Hunters of various types enjoy bagging game with different tools, and in the deep sky this can mean finding the smallest aperture in which something is visible. For me, a progression in passion has evolved over time, from appreciating just the appearance of an object to understanding its place and relevance within the architecture of our universe.

Abell galaxy cluster 2667, with gravitationally lensed arc.

Travel is an enhancing factor in these pursuits. Total solar eclipses have motivated my wife Monica and me to visit places we may have otherwise not seen, such as China and Australia. Two years ago, we explored Chile as part of an astronomy-based tour. This brief aperitif whetted my appetite for a full course of Southern Hemisphere observing. Talking about and rehashing details of places we’ve been and things we’ve seen is always a great part of the pleasure. One advantage for terrestrial hunters is consuming the game they have procured. The feeling of satisfaction in revisiting the experience in that manner can be a reminder of the mental and emotional responses involved in the event. My neighbor and several friends take an annual trip to Montana to hunt elk, and they share whatever meat is brought back. Their permits and fees support conservation of those large animals, and without such money resources may not be available to protect and stabilize their population. There is a risk of getting shut out, as has happened several times in their elk hunts. The same thing can occur to amateur observers, despite meticulous planning. My friends experienced this at the 2018 Okie-Tex Star Party when they had no observing in eight days. Rain, clouds and

wet weather prevailed the whole week, something that had never come close to happening in their collective experience of many dozen star parties.

Over thirty-five years of observing I have seen many thousands of objects, a number of them multiple times, and record my observations in hand-written logs. I don’t always do this for bright and frequently seen things such as those on the Messier list, except if I am trying to see something new. Spotting proplyds within M42 is a recent example. Having accurate records to access helps in many ways. They can document a progression of skill over time, and how new information may enhance appreciation and enjoyment of old friends by revisiting them, as in the cases of planetary nebulae, outer haloes and galactic tidal structures. The Andromeda Galaxy has enough published papers about it that I could spend all my fall observing time on just this one galaxy and never deplete the possibilities. New globulars are being found for it on a regular basis. That they may now extend over half the distance to the Milky Way suggests that the comingling of structure that will precede their eventual merger is already underway. These clusters are faint but visible in my large reflector, so in a very real sense we are observing the earliest stage of this event. I have a project to visually observe variability in Hubble’s first M31 Cepheid that was foundational in determining that the universe is expanding.

At the beginning of my observing career, everything was new and fresh. I sought out information from multiple sources, such as David Eicher’s Deep Sky magazine and the Observer’s Guide from my longtime friends Bob Kepple and Glen Sanner, three giants of deep-sky observing. My first regional star party (Texas in 1989) was an eye-opening revelation. The king and queen of that event, Larry Mitchell and Barbara Wilson, are still going strong thirty years later, though without the youthful ardor involved in shouting back and forth across the field about some new arcanity. World-class speakers such as Robert Williams, Halton Arp and Timothy Ferris graced the podium in those heady days. Their skill and accomplishments ignited the fires of youthful enthusiasm and motivated me to see all of Arp’s groups and to attempt the unimagined trial of observing galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field. Pushing equipment to such limits is both exhilarating and exhausting. Failure is inevitable and success can take many years. In the search for brown dwarfs it took over a decade for the science to mature and for me to find an object visible in my 32'' reflector. This occurred from my home in 2006. The hunt for a gravitationally lensed arc took even longer but culminated in a successful observation in AGC 2667 at the 2007 Okie-Tex event.

These milestone observations stoked a motivation to change my pattern of observing from following lists such as those from the Astronomical League, which are the most comprehensive available for the beginning and moderately advanced amateur, to searching professional literature and websites for things on the cutting edge of current research. I understood the limit of my equipment and the different conditions of the sites from which I usually observed. If something was visible on the Palomar Observatory Sky Survery (POSS) images, then I felt I could see it. The widest gravitationally lensed object, redshift 5 and 6 quasars, Sedna, brown dwarfs and even galaxies outlining the first confirmed dark-matter piece of the cosmic web were all in range of a patient observer willing to wait for just the right

10GEMINI • www.mnastro.org

conditions. Spotting a gravitational arc took over a decade to find one potentially visible. I traveled with all my equipment a thousand miles from home, searched many nights for sky clarity and stillness to conjoin, and spent ninety minutes atop a nine-foot ladder, hand guiding in gusty winds, to be certain it was seen multiple times.

When I share these ideas, I have found that most observers underestimate the limits of what they can see. Appreciating the journey it takes to see a challenging object is the first step. The next is to attempt its observation, with the ultimate goal to create an enduring passion for exploration. In an age where many things compete for our attention, I hope the spark of interest to hunt big game never wanes.

MAS Patron Members

Patron memberships are available to those who wish to contribute a little extra to support MAS activities. Patron memberships are established by constitution at 2-1/2 times the Regular membership rate—currently $65 annually for a patron membership. The $39 additional contribution is tax deductible. Patron memberships help fund equipment acquisitions, facility improvements, outreach activities and more. We would like to thank the following patron members as of January 2.

Tom and Arlene AlmScott AndersonSteve AndersonStephen AnthonyJack AtkinsSteve BaranskiGreg BarilMichael BehnkeBradley BeiselOmkar BhujadScott BilleadeauKatie BloomeWayne BolineNatalie BrosharRev. Eugene BrownJay BrueschJonathan BurkhardtJeff BurrowsEarl ByeBill BynumKen CarlsonKurt CasbyJames CeglaStuart ChastainCara ClarkDeane Clark, Jr.Bruce ColemanMark ConnollyRon CooperMike DanielsGary DavisJustin DavisPaul and Jolie DavisRichard DavisMary Beth Smith & Ted DeMattiesThomas Dillon

Molly DuffinMatt DunhamDave EckbladWilliam EggersSteven EmertDavid FalknerRobert FarrellAlan FischerJoseph FisherPatricia FlugaurRobert FoucaultAndrew FraserPaul GadeMark GarnerJim GerrityErik GisselquistWilliam GlassMartin GodfreyBradley GordonMartin GormansonSteven GrabarkiewiczLawrence GrayAntone GregoryDaniel GunterJere Gwin-LenthDale HagertJake HairrellBrandon HamilRyan HansonCarl HasbargenGreg HaubrichThomas HawkinsonMichael HaydockJonathan HaymanVictor HeinerAngela Heins FamilyBryan Helmer

John HillMerle HiltnerGary HoaglundMichael HobbsLauren HoenGreg HokansonMichael HopfenspirgerGeorge HulmeJason IngebretsonCarole IsaksonAnton Jachim, PhDDick JacobsonGale JallenLen JannuschStephen JensenMark JobChelen JohnsonJulie A. Y. JohnsonKurt JohnsonJerry JonesMichael KauperKenneth KerrickMichael KibatMichael KnowlenJim KnudsenBill KockenDavid KockenKristoffer KopitzkeParke KunkleMary LahrJonathan LarsonChristine LaughlinKevin LeeLouis LeichterSteven LeikindPaul LiederClayton Lindsey

Shawn LovettWalid MaalouliEdward MalinkaDavid MaloneJohn MarchettiSteven MayDuane McDonnellRon McLaughlinJavier MedranoRebecca MesserDan MeyerMatt & Jessica MeyerBeverly MillerGerald MillerScott MorganDoug NevermanJim NewtonSteveNieckarzAlan NootDouglas OinesThor OlsonChristopher PaolaMark PetchenikMardon QuandtAhmed RedaMichael RegouskiKirby RichterStephen RiendlGerald RoehlRobyn RowenDaniel RuhJack SandbergRoy Cameron SarverPaul SchalegerDean SchantzenJames SchenzRonald Schmit

Loren SchoenzeitPaul SchroederDavid SchultzKristopher SetnesMike ShawJeff ShlosbergBernie SimmonsRobert SimsDavid SiskindDavid SjogrenEric SmestadAndrew SmithKatherine SprollMcLanahan StevensBernie StingerJack StormsDavid SwymelerPeggy TangDavid TostesonValts TreibergsDavid TruchotSteve UlrichJohn Van HoomissenBob VangenDavid VenneLawrence WaitePaul WalkerFred WallSarah WeaverDavid WetzelMary WilliamsGene YatesKaren ZiemekJohn ZimitschMark ZimitschNeal Zimmerman

Ultima Thule, a Kuiper Belt object photographed by New Horizons.

11 February 2019

Minnesota Astronomical Society 2019 Star Party Schedule Twilight Completely dark Moon % ELO Public Cherry LLCC B-SIG @ Friday Date Sunset ends: from: to: Illuminated Night (Saturday) Grove Weekend Metcalf (Sat.) Notes Mar 08 06:11 PM 07:45 PM 08:16 PM 04:59 AM 10% x

Mar 22 07:29 PM 09:04 PM 09:04 PM 09:35 PM 93% x

Mar 29 07:37 PM 09:14 PM 09:14 PM 04:29 AM 36% x

Apr 05 07:46 PM 09:45 PM 09:45 PM 05:02 AM 0% x x Messier Marathon

Apr 12 07:54 PM 09:36 PM 03:25 AM 04:47 AM 50% x

Apr 26 08:12 PM 10:01 PM 10:01 PM 03:05 AM 50% x x x

May 03 08:20 PM 10:14 PM 10:14 PM 04:02 AM 2% x x Virgo Venture

May 10 08:28 PM 10:27 PM 02:11 AM 03:48 AM 37% x x ELO: Astronomy Day (Saturday)

May 24 08:44 PM 10:54 PM 10:54 PM 01:39 AM 67% x x

May 31 08:50 PM 11:05 PM 11:05 PM 03:13 AM 8% x x

Jun 07 08:55 PM 11:15 PM 12:53 AM 03:05 AM 22% x x

Jun 14 08:59 PM 11:22 PM 92% x

Jun 21 09:02 PM 11:25 PM 11:25 PM 12:10 AM 83% x

Jun 28 09:02 PM 11:25 PM 11:25 PM 03:05 AM 20% x x

Jul 05 09:01 PM 11:20 PM 11:30 PM 03:13 AM 12% x x

Jul 12 08:57 PM 11:12 PM 03:03 AM 03:23 AM 83% x

Jul 19 08:52 PM 11:02 PM 93% x

Jul 26 08:46 PM 10:49 PM 10:49 PM 01:40 AM 34% x x

Aug 02 08:37 PM 10:36 PM 10:36 PM 04:00 AM 4% x x ELO: Camping with the stars

Aug 09 08:28 PM 10:21 PM 01:45 AM 0 4:13 AM 71% x

Aug 16 08:17 PM 10:06 PM 99% x

Aug 23 08:06 PM 09:51 PM 09:51 PM 12:12 AM 50% x

Aug 30 07:54 PM 09:36 PM 09:36 PM 04:49 AM 0% x x Northern Nights Star Fest: 8/27-9/2

Sep 06 07:41 PM 09:20 PM 12:26 AM 05:00 AM 53% x x

Sep 13 07:28 PM 09:05 PM 100% x

Sep 20 07:15 PM 08:51 PM 08:51 PM 10:48 PM 60% x

Sep 27 07:02 PM 08:37 PM 08:37 PM 05:29 AM 1% x x MAS Mini Messier Marathon (4M)

Oct 04 06:50 PM 08:23 PM 11:07 PM 05:37 AM 45% x x ELO: Fall Astronomy Day (Saturday)

Oct 11 06:37 PM 08:11 PM 97% x

Oct 18 06:25 PM 07:59 PM 07:59 PM 09:29 PM 74% x

Oct 25 06:13 PM 07:47 PM 07:47 PM 06:04 AM 6% x x

Nov 01 06:04 PM 07:39 PM 09:47 PM 06:11 AM 29% x x

Nov 11 x Transit of Mercury (cancelled if cloudy)

Nov 15 04:48 PM 06:25 PM 06:25 PM 07:15 PM 86% x

Nov 22 04:42 PM 06:21 PM 06:21 PM 03:23 AM 15% x x

Nov 29 04:38 PM 06:18 PM 07:29 PM 05:42 AM 14% x

Dec 20 04:38 PM 06:20 PM 06:20 PM 02:23 AM 28%

Dec 27 04:42 PM 06:24 PM 06:24 PM 06:01 AM 4%

CGO (Latitude: 44.1971 Longitude: -92.8623): star party dates are for Friday nights with the alternate (if cloudy) for Saturday night.

LLCC star party dates for the entire weekend w/ housing provided by LLCC

REMINDER: Go/No Go decision is posted on the MAS website ONLY for the Messier Marathon, Virgo Venture & Mini-Messier Marathon.

B-SIG star party dates are for Saturday night, with the alternate being on Friday if the Saturday date is forecast cloudy.

B-SIG, Go / No-Go decission will be posted on the MAS Discussion Forums.

http://forums.mnastro.org/forums/viewforum.php?f=5

*** need to check the B-SIG policy with Suresh ***

ELO Public Star Parties (Latitude: 44.8103 Longitude: -93.9397): are All-Weather events for Saturday nights unless otherwise noted.

All times are from Skytools 3 and specifically for CGO; approximated for all else.

This schedule is subject to change. Please check the MAS online calendar at www.mnastro.org for a complete schedule of all MAS events.

Cherry Grove Star Parties are held on Friday nights, with Saturday reserved as the backup night if Friday is cloudy.

LLCC (Latitude: 46.6470 Longitude: -93.4650): Star parties are held on both Friday and Saturday night.

Eagle Lake Public nights are held on Saturday nights only.

J.J. Casby: Latitude: 44.9245 Longitude: -92.7924)Metcalf: Latitude: 44.93734 Longitude: -92.82157

How to pay your dues February 2019 Volume 45 Number 1Your MAS membership expires at the beginning of the month shown on your membership card. You will be notified of your renewal

by e-mail two months prior to expiration and by USPS mail the month of your expiration. You may renew by mail or online using PayPal. By mail: Send your payment to the MAS membership coordinator at: Minnesota Astronomical Society, Attn. Membership coordinator, P.O. Box 14931, Minneapolis, MN 55414. Make checks payable to MAS. Current annual membership rates when paying by check are: $26 regular, $13 student, and $65 for patron memberships. You may renew for one year or for two years at a time. Online using PayPal: PayPal charges a fee, so MAS includes a voluntary contribution in the PayPal membership rates to offset that fee. Membership rates us-ing PayPal are $27.50 regular, $13.75 student and $67.25 patron. The membership form and the procedure for joining or renewing using PayPal may be found at www.mnastro.org/members/join/. The bimonthly Gemini newsletter is included with your membership online as a downloadable .pdf file. You will be notified by email when each issue becomes available online for you to download and print.

Sky and Telescope and Astronomy Magazine Subscriptions

MAS members are offered subscriptions to these magazines at a club discount. The S&T discount subscription is $32.95 per year ($34.25 when using PayPal). New subscriptions to S&T at the member discount must be sent to MAS for processing. Send new subscrip-tions or renewals with your MAS membership to the MAS P.O. box or online using the PayPal process, or you may make subsequent subscription renewals directly with S&T on their web site, by mail or by phone with Sky Publishing at 1-800-253-0245.

Astronomy Magazine member discount subscriptions are available for one-, two- or three-year subscriptions. You may subscribe or renew your existing subscription by check or by using the MAS online renewal process and paying via PayPal when entering or renewing your MAS membership, or you can subscribe or renew your Astronomy Magazine subscription directly online using a credit card. When renewing using a credit card, you can renew for one year at $34 per year, two years at $60 ($30 per year), or $83 for three years ($27.66 per year). To subscribe online, go to Astronomy.com/offer and locate the Promo Code box. Then type in the MAS unique promo code of ANTZ055 and click the Update button. The offer at the top of the page will change automatically. Scroll to the top of the page and select the order term (1 year, 2 years, or 3 years). Enter your name, address and email information. Click on the Submit button. You will receive a confirmation page, which we suggest you print for your records.

How to Subscribe to MAS e-mail Distribution Lists

MAS uses Web discussion forums and e-mail distribution lists for timely communications. We highly recommend that you subscribe to both the Web forums and the MAS general distribution e-mail list.

To subscribe to the MAS e-mail list visit: lists.mnastro.org/mnastro/listinfo, click on the MAS list link and follow the subscription instructions. There is a general list (MAS), an outreach list and lists for other special purposes.

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